PHED augmentation plant at Khuga dam supplying water

LAMKA, April 9: The water augmentation plant of the PHED at the Khuga Dam is supplying water to a section Lamka town and 11 downstream villages.Several water tankers numbering more than a hundred  line up along the left side canal of the dam everyday to fill up their tankers and sell it to the people of Lamka.

During a meeting with this IFP correspondent, the Section Officer in Charge of the water treatment plant Thang Khan Lian said the plant is not an under performer when it comes to actual public utility in Lamka and its surrounding areas.

The PHED is functioning under immense pressure as so far only seven SOs have been appointed out of the 11 sanctioned, he said. The infrastructures at the plant include two settling tanks with a 896 kilolitre capacity, five Slow Sand Filters (SSF) tank which measure 15x15 meter with a dept of 8 feet and laden with imported sand, a Group Sump which had a capacity of 9 lakh liter and a clean water reservoir with 12 lakh liter capacity which are emptied for supply each morning.

It may be mentioned that in the past, the MS pipe was laid under the Khuga multipurpose project undertaken by the IFCD of Manipur which was of low quality and burst under the water pressure following which the CCPur PHED took the project.

The PHED has arranged for five part time caretakers who are being paid on the availability of funds as the present workforce is inadequate, untrained and not enterprising enough to answer the work demand of the plant which is virtually 24x7 and calls for an indepth knowledge.

The SO said that giving work to contractor means exposing the work to potential unskilled hand and so they are doing their best with the department undertaking most of the construction work by itself.

On the basement of the plant was a power house, with three motors of 100 hp ready to pump the water.

There is also a diesel generator at hand for emergency though it will be irrational to utilize its service at all times due to the cost factor of the fuel.

This treatment plan falls in Zone 3 of the PHED project with Zone I of Koite Lui answering the need of North Lamka area and zone 2 at Bungmual taking care of West and Eastern parts of Lamka township and  zone 3 taking on the rest which is directly funded by the Non-Lapsable Center Pool of Resource under DONOR, Government of India.

The plant had been for the past two years supplied water to the New Lamka area. The people of Lamka had been managing with less than 1500 liter of water for weeks while the average consumption per head in the world is 1800 liter per day or 3802 trillion liter per year.

The foundation stone of the water treatment plat was laid by the current Chief Minister O Ibobi on February 11, 2004 and inaugurated by him on March 13, 2010 in the presence of T Phungzathang; TN Haokip and N Biren Singh the then IFCD Minister.

The official of the department confided that with  time, the area of operation will be upgraded to include other zones particularly those of zone 2 which is far from sufficient and which on a spot visit, show that it was unlikely to ever work to its intended capacity as the river source had dried up.